by John Smoltz
STARTING
AND
CLOSING
Perseverance, Faith, and One More Year
John Smoltz
with Don Yaeger
Dedication
To my wife, Kathryn, who helped me get through the final year of my career.
Without her love and support, I am not sure I could have made it.
To my kids. Their support and understanding were essential as well.
To my family. My mom, dad, brother, and sister were, and have always been, awesome.
And last, to Dr. Joe Chandler. Without you and Dr. Jim Andrews, I don’t know where I’d be. Your passion as a doctor is unmatched and your care is unreal. Without a doubt, you made it possible for me to play many years longer than anyone expected. JS
To Mom and Dad: As I heard often while working here with John, the real framework for success is built at home. Thanks for laying that foundation for me. I miss you both. DY
Contents
Title Page
Dedication
Chapter One: Why Not?
Chapter Two: Burn Notice
Chapter Three: So You Say I’ve Got a Chance?!
Chapter Four: Once a Tiger
Chapter Five: Perseverance
Chapter Six: Bullpen Business
Chapter Seven: Closing for Dummies
Chapter Eight: Me and the Homeboys Upstairs
Chapter Nine: No Decision
Chapter Ten: 1 + 1 ≠ 2
Chapter Eleven: Fairway Tales
Chapter Twelve: Starting Over
Chapter Thirteen: Hiccups
Chapter Fourteen: Success and Failure
Chapter Fifteen: Chasing Rings, Part I
Chapter Sixteen: Chasing Rings, Part II
Chapter Seventeen: Vindication
Chapter Eighteen: A Sweep Worth Savoring
Chapter Nineteen: A Hamburger, a Hot Dog, and a French Fry Walk into a Bar…
Epilogue
Index
Acknowledgments
Photos
About the Authors
Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher
Chapter One
WHY NOT?
It’s been more than two years since I picked up a baseball, but everyone still wants to know. Whether I’m standing in line for a movie with my kids, teeing it up at a golf tournament, or just hanging around a batting cage chatting with current players before a game, the questions are always the same.
Why?
Why did I come back from Tommy John surgery at age thirty-four with one year left on my contract? Why did I go to the bullpen after more than a decade as a starter? Why after three full seasons in the bullpen did I feel compelled to convince then–Atlanta general manager John Schuerholz to let me rejoin the Braves’ starting rotation? Why did I put my body through all those surgeries and years of rehab? Why did I risk failing … for one more year?
Why?
By now I’m used to the questions. I guess that happens after spending more than twenty years standing by a locker and pulling on a uniform as my motives, my reasoning, and even my sanity at times were questioned, examined, and scrutinized. My career always seemed to invite people to wonder, What the heck is this guy thinking? The media, of course, tried to fill in the blanks and provide some answers, and countless reporters along the way have attempted to pin me down and define me as a baseball player. But let me tell you, sometimes they were wrong. I guess it’s easy to be wrong about someone when you’re trying to suggest what he should be doing or predict what he’s going to do. And I guess from the perspective of most people, it always seemed like there was very little to gain and much to lose by a lot of the things I did.
In truth, my answer to all these questions is the same, and it’s far simpler than many believe: Why not?
Why not do what you love for as long as you’re physically able? Why not take risks, as long as they’re calculated? Why not chase what some see as impossible? Why not believe in yourself? Why not dare to be great … even if it means being different?
Why not?
I’m here to tell you that understanding who I am and why I did what I did—or even why I do what I do today—is really very simple. You just need to know three things about me:
1. All I ever wanted to do was win.
2. I’m not afraid to fail.
3. I never did anything in my baseball career just to set a record, or to be able to say no one else has done what I have done.
All I ever wanted to do was win.
I decided I was going to be a professional baseball player when I was seven years old, and from the first day I picked up a baseball to the day I stopped playing, all I ever wanted to do was win. I truly enjoy competing and I really believe to this day that I can beat most people. It’s really not an ego thing; it’s just a belief that I have and I think it’s really one of the keys to my success on the field and in life in general.
But at the same time it’s not like I don’t have any grip on reality and think I can do anything. Like if you ask me to ice-skate, I’m not going to fake it and say in four months I’ll be able to ice-skate and possibly play on a hockey team. It may seem crazy that a guy from Michigan has never worn ice skates, but I seriously have never even put them on and don’t think I could. So I don’t believe things I know I can’t possibly ever do. I am just really aware of what I am and am not capable of doing. I know my body and I know what I can do.
I wish I could put my finger on what makes me just know certain things about myself. You would think a lot of athletes know their bodies like this and have this type of confidence, but from my experience hanging around baseball clubhouses for more than twenty years, they really don’t. They are all blessed with God-given abilities and tremendous talents, but very few of them ever achieve their highest potential. It seems to me that the majority of people—pro athletes and average Joes alike—are unwilling to break out of their comfort zones and risk the possibility of things not going well. We’ll dig into this more here shortly, but for now let’s just say I’m not one of those people.
Another thing I know about myself is how I learn. This sounds like a pretty basic concept considering most of us started school when we were about five years old. But seriously, knowing this is so important. Let me tell you, gone are the days when you could be an everyday big leaguer on raw talent alone. I guarantee you the guys who are able to stay in the majors and sustain careers are the ones who are constantly adjusting and developing their skills—whether it’s a fastball pitcher tweaking his breaking-ball delivery, a contact hitter learning to hit the ball the other way, or a veteran infielder learning how to position himself to compensate for losing a step over the years—today’s game demands players to adapt, overcome, or be sent down.
For me, when it came to working on new techniques like throwing sidearm or throwing a knuckleball, I was able to pick them up really quickly because I’m one of those guys who, if you show me something or tell me something and I feel it right away, I’ll pick it up just like that. On the other hand, though, if I don’t feel it, you could show me the trick to the greatest four-seam fastball in the majors and I’ll just never be able to do it. I’ve got to see it or feel it for myself, or it just isn’t going to happen. When it came down to it, knowing how I needed to approach new ideas really enabled me to take the mound many, many more times than I could have otherwise. Over and over again I found ways to work through injuries that would have likely just ended another guy’s career. With me, it all really boiled down to doing whatever I could do to win.
From Little League to the big leagues, I have always wanted to win at all costs—not cheat to win, but seriously do whatever else it takes to win. Wh
atever the team needed me to do, I was always willing to do. If they asked me to lay down a bunt to move the runner to second base, I didn’t allow myself any excuses. That’s just not how my mind works. No, I stuck my bat out there and tried like heck to roll one down the first-base line. And if I popped it up or knocked it right back to the pitcher? Then I would be seriously upset with myself for not coming through when my team needed me. It’s just my competitive nature. No matter the circumstance, I have always felt this great responsibility to my team. In my mind, there was always something I could do to help us win.
This will to win at all costs was really key to overcoming all the injuries I struggled with through the years. To me, the most important thing was always being able to make the next start; the pain was always secondary. My mind-set was always, “What can I do to work around the pain and still pitch effectively?” Mostly I did this by tinkering with my mechanics—changing a grip, changing my arm position, shortening my stride, just whatever it took.
Now, obviously, I’m human and I knew eventually there would come a point where I was just done, when the pain would be so unbearable that no matter what I tried, I just wasn’t going to be effective anymore. I was always intent on exhausting all options before I got to that point; I was intent on trying every adjustment known to man to give myself a chance to go out there and contribute.
I pushed this strategy to the max in 1999 when I was really in the countdown to Tommy John surgery. I’ll save the full story for a little later, but I basically taught myself how to pitch a whole new way, not really sidearm, but a low three-quarters delivery. I changed my complete delivery in one side session in the bullpen between games. I reinvented myself in the middle of a season. It was a huge risk to take, but I really thought I could be effective, and I was. Altering my delivery allowed me to continue my season and help my team down the stretch. I could have sat out and waited to feel better, but I never wanted to do that. I never wanted to play it safe. Had I played it safe, I would have missed pitching in five postseason games that year, including Game Four of the World Series. Taking the risk and making the adjustment gave me one more opportunity to win, and I would do it all again in a heartbeat.
I’m not afraid to fail.
I’m not afraid to fail. It doesn’t sound like much, does it? But just think about this for a second. How many people can you think of right now who are out there, chasing down their dreams no matter what? Throughout my experiences in life thus far—from being a father and raising kids to coaching youth sports and observing elite athletes for more than two decades—one thing has become really obvious to me: We have a chronic fear of failure going on in this country right now.
Very few people today go out and, on their own desires, set a path toward their goals and then follow that path to its complete end. They don’t let their natural ability be the determining factor. They let all the exterior things come into play—the doubts and the doubters—and they never reach their goals. Heck, a lot of them don’t even get started. They never even give themselves a chance to fail. I’m telling you, I’ve seen more great athletes and more kids choke up or choke off an opportunity simply because they never even gave themselves a chance. They’re too afraid to even risk the possibility. So many people are busy coming up with reasons why they can’t do whatever it is they really want to do that many never even let themselves wonder, why not?
Now look, there’s obviously a difference between not being in touch with reality and thinking you can do whatever you want. We can’t all throw a ninety-eight-mile-per-hour fastball and we can’t all run forty yards in 4.4 seconds. But we all have God-given talents, things that we excel at and enjoy doing. The thing is, talent is only one-half of the equation; it’ll only get you so far. You also have to have the right mind-set. At some point you just have to decide, All right, I’m going to go in with this game plan, and with the right plan I’m going to execute this. And if I fail, so be it. I’ll learn something that will help me be successful the next time.
In my career, learning how to deal with failure wasn’t just a bonus that I kind of picked up along the way. Unfortunately, it was really a necessity. I’m one of those guys—and believe me, I wish it hadn’t been this way, but I’m one of those guys who was always kind of digging out of a hole. More often than not, I was looking for a rally cry. With the exception of my first game in the big leagues, almost everything for me didn’t go well right away. I won my first game, and then I failed miserably. Nothing ever seemed to come easy and I was always battling. Along the way I was always telling myself, John, you can rally from this. Struggling through the tough times—the 2–11 stretches, the times when the bats seemed to go quiet every time I pitched—taught me never to get too carried away with success, and at the same time never to get too carried away with failure. The lessons were tough to learn, really tough, but they served me well in baseball and in life.
In some ways, not being afraid to fail really allowed me to get away with all my infamous tinkering. I’m certainly not the only pitcher who has ever worked on things in the bullpen or watched other guys pitch and picked up things here and there. Everyone does that. The difference is that very few guys ever even try new things in the game. Me? I always brought it to the game. Again, I just figured, Why not? There’s no way to know if it’s going to be effective until you bring it in the game.
Now, obviously there’s risk involved here. You could fail. They could light you up like a Christmas tree on national TV. Been there, done that, and thankfully lived to tell about it. But I always thought, What good does it do to just keep it in the bullpen? You’ve got to have the guts to find out. You’ve got to be able to cross the line when it counts and be able to trust the thing you’re working on. And if it doesn’t work, you’ve got to trust that you can go back to the bullpen and find something that does. It all goes back to believing you can do it in the first place.
I’m telling you, in my baseball career some of the moments that should have done me in were actually motivators for me. When other guys might have just hung it up, for me it was always rally time. Take my second time out of the bullpen in 2002 as a closer. I stunk it up. There were reasons why I stank—another injury, of course—but I wasn’t going to use it as an excuse. I still remember getting in my car after the game and just telling myself, You know what, John, you gotta dig deep. You just gave up eight runs in your second game as a closer. Your season goals have just been shot. But you gotta get back in there and keep pitching. I wasn’t afraid of the job and I wasn’t afraid of the challenges, but I knew it wasn’t going to be pretty for a while.
When I decide I am going to do something, I’m going to do it. When I take my mind to a place where I focus only on the task at hand and it’s totally wrapped, it’s all in. It isn’t, “Maybe I can do it.” No. If I fail, I’m failing all in.
If there is anything that I’ve learned in this journey, it’s how to make the best out of really crappy situations. Whatever it is, just make the best out of it. It’s easy to just give in to the negative thinking: Everything is stacked up against you, everyone is out to get you, and woe is me and all that. Doubts arise and it’s natural to question yourself and think, What am I doing? But if I had ever given in to those doubts, if I had let the fear of failing dictate my career, I never would have known what I was truly capable of and I would still be wondering today, What if? Let me tell you, I’m sure thankful today to know.
I never did anything in baseball just to set a record, or to be able to say no one has done what I have done.
First of all, the reason no one had ever gone from being a starter to a closer and then back again is certainly not because there’s never been anyone else capable of doing it. There are a handful of people I can think of right off the top of my head who have got the stuff and who could be effective at both. Guys like Randy Johnson, for one. But why would they? And would they if they were asked? I don’t know. And of those capable of doing both, do you think any would consider swi
tching midway through their careers? I mean, do you think if you went up to Mariano Rivera and asked him to start, he would? It’s an interesting question.
My reasons for going to the bullpen and later rejoining the starting rotation had absolutely nothing to do with setting records or just trying to do something that no one else had done before. And honestly, if my primary motivation had been to be able to say something like that, I don’t think I would have ever been successful.
When it came to closing, what a lot of people don’t understand is that Atlanta really kind of leveraged me into it. I was basically told after the 2001 season that the only way I could stay with the Braves was to move to the bullpen.
Okay, time out. I guess we need to add another item to the list of things you need to know about me: (4) I lived and breathed and bled the Atlanta Braves. Atlanta was my baseball home and remains my home today. I wish I could have stayed forever with the Braves, but it just didn’t work out that way for me.
As for going back to starting, the reason was actually simple. Records were not on my mind. Winning was on my mind.
All I ever wanted to do was win. I wasn’t afraid to fail. I still thought I could pitch, and I wanted to be an Atlanta Brave. Those are the answers to 99 percent of the questions about my career. It’s really as simple as that. For twenty-one long seasons, game after game, inning after inning, I kept coming back because despite what everyone else thought, I knew I could still do it. Had I not struggled through all the injuries, had I always waited for things to heal and for conditions to be perfect, I wouldn’t have experienced half the success that I did over the course of my career. Certainly it made me the pitcher I was. When it came down to it, I pitched some of my greatest games in the worst of conditions. And at the end of the day, the results were all that mattered.